20 April 2015 - What's new
20 April 2015
- After a London Book Fair (LBF) which was all about publishers from across the world talking to each other, a Bookseller article enables us to look in more depth at last week's link Authors call for better communication with publishers | The Bookseller. This week's News Review is about the London Book Fair and how authors are disappointed by publishers.
- Our 19-part Inside Publishing series gives you an insider's take on the publishing world, covering everything from subsidiary rights to the world Engllish language market, from advances and royalties to the writer/publisher financial relationship.
- Our Comment this week is by Akhil Sharma, author of Family Life, which has just won the Folio Prize: ‘If you write only the true things people get bored... ordinary life is shapeless... When I write, I'm here to use everything I can to make this a good book. It's not me expressing my inner soul. It is me using everything that I have, so I can tell this story...'
- Are you interested in Getting Your Manuscript Copy Edited? As well as this article we have one from our Inside Publishing series about Copy editing and proof-reading - and the difference between them - and we offer a Copy editing service, as well as a Proof-reading service and our special Manuscript Polishing service, which involves more intensive work, 'polishing' and improving the text, and correcting the English if you are writing in English as a second language.
- WritersServices editor Kay GaleWritersServices editor who has worked for many years as a freelance editor for number of publishers. is shortlisted for The DFDS Travel Blogger of the Year Award for her engaging website The Single Gourmet Traveller, but you've only got until 24 April if you want to vote for her on this site.
- You've got until 29 May to enter this week's Writing Opportunity, the 2015 University of Canberra Vice Chancellor's International Poetry Prize, one of the richest poetry prizes in the world and open to all poets from across the world.
- Links of the week: a perceptive and well-informed look at publishing from a top London editor, The civil war for books: where is the money going? - Spectator Blogs; why do big novels and series have such a hold on the reader? From Potter to Tartt to Ferrante ‹ Literary Hub; why is listening to audio so compelling as a way of story-telling? This Is Your Brain on Podcasts: Why Audio Storytelling Is So Addictive - The Atlantic; and a fascinating account of how secondhand books got to where they are now, Can you really make a living by selling used books on Amazon for a penny? | Books | The Guardian.
- More links: rather to the surprise of publishing commentators, our biggest trade publisher is getting into subscription after all, Penguin Random House Might Not Understand the Subscription Market, But They're Getting Into It Anyway | Ink, Bits, & Pixels; how books are fighting back, Traditional books on paper open a new chapter of success | Books | The Guardian; and a successful initiative in Africa, As Seen from Uganda, African Writing is Alive and Well.
- Useful pages on the WritersService website include Making Submissions and Finding an Agent.
- 'If you go too far in fantasy and break the string of logic, and become nonsensical, someone will surely remind you of your dereliction....Pound for pound, fantasy makes a tougher opponent for the creative person. 'Richard Matheson in our Writers' Quotes.
